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I have been very fired up on behalf of the striking Air Canada flight attendants who, as of this writing, tentatively have a deal.
Mostly because I’ve been seeing a discouraging number of people posting comments online along the lines of “those are the terms of your job, buttercup, if you don’t like it, quit.” As though this strike was borne out of entitlement and not, I don’t know, unfair working conditions.
Flight attendants are important. They are highly trained stewards of safety, capable of dealing with complex, life-threatening situations that hopefully none of us will ever experience.
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Be very glad if your interactions with them have only ever been during drink service because that means your flights have been safe. They aren’t actually up there to serve you coffee. They are up there to potentially save your life if things go sideways.
Side rant: It floors me how many people don’t listen to the safety demonstration. That’s how you end up with people retrieving hand luggage during an evacuation, which is what happened on an American Airlines flight last month.
The crux of the labour dispute between the flight attendants and Air Canada is an industry-wide standard practice that shouldn’t be: not paying flight attendants for work done on the ground. Safety checks, delays, boarding, deplaning: all of that is unpaid, yet all are essential components of the job.
Also, you gotta wonder if this would even be an issue if flight attendant wasn’t a traditionally feminized position. The devaluing of “women’s work” — nurses, teachers, social workers, dental hygienists, secretaries, etc. — is a perennial problem, with women in those professions typically making less money than men working in male-dominated fields.
Per the tentative agreement, flight attendants will now receive at least 60 minutes of ground pay at 50 per cent of their hourly rate, with that rate increasing five per cent each year. It’s a start; other airlines would do well to follow suit so their flight attendants don’t have to strike.
Labour action causes friction. It’s meant to. That’s what makes it effective. I understand that people were disappointed and frustrated to have summer vacations cancelled and work trips prolonged or to be stranded somewhere on their own dime. I have been there! Please recall how this airline sent me to Denver!
But it’s a shame to me that so much public ire was directed at striking employees when it should have been directed at a company that has the audacity to pay its upper brass million-dollar bonuses while not paying its flight attendants for work done on the ground.
Do we not want work to be better, for everyone? Do we not want to demand better for ourselves and those coming up behind us? Do we not want people to be able to create 30-year careers that they can remain passionate about and dedicated to because they are being fairly compensated?
Or have we all been capitalism-pilled to believe that “we’re lucky to even have a job” and “if you don’t like it, there’s the door”?
Congratulations to the Air Canada flight attendants for fighting for your worth and on your deal, should you choose to accept it. May it make things better for flight crews all over the world.
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